It took a decade of research on the crystalline technology of the Moon Kingdom and Venus' solid light constructs to make the training chamber here feasible. The programming that controlled the illusionary environment within this underground chamber required two years and considerable aid from the post-graduate computer science department at the nearby university; while the power dampeners, gravity control, and safety subroutines required a further six months of testing each before they proved satisfactory. And the designer remained the butt of cracks about an american manga she had never heard of before naming the place to this day.
(Although her subsequent research had given her considerable appreciation for the late Mr. Claremont's work)
In any case, Dr. Mizuno (or Lady Mercury on the most ceremonial occasions) had intended this chamber primarily as a means of simulating inhospitable surroundings and testing the full abilities of the Senshi without rendering large areas uninhabitable or disrupting interplanetary communication. Other uses, such as the subroutine she kept hidden in the housekeeping files, were simply bonuses... or at least that what she kept telling herself.
A soft beep signaled readiness. Ami took a deep breath, straightened the archaic street clothes (of a cut dating from her youth), checks the safety protocols (minimal; anything short of maiming, brain damage, or a death-wound could be handled with the medical kit in her room and the teleport-system could get her there quietly), hefted the research volumes she truthfully said she was going to read through anyway when asked, and stepped through the door.
To an untrained eye, it could have been any city park in the northern hemisphere (quite literally thanks to satellite access and landscaping programs). Ami's heart knew this to be a lie, as her rapid pulse indicated. Even when she was no older than she looked, enough strength and dexterity had bled over into what could be called her mortal form to make her a match for anything short of a dozen black belts in unarmed combat if she did not see fit to take the heartbeat needed to summon her power and flash-freeze anything up to a city block.
Here only commands entered from the (empty and locked) control room could shut down the power suppressors without deactivating the scenario, and only Saturn could overload them outright. She only had her physical strength to aid her against anything she may encounter; she could not see into the shadows nor hear any heartbeat save her own, and the only thing she knew is that 98.3% of anyone she encountered here bigger than she would be fast and strong enough to hold her...
... hurt her...
... take her...
... use her...
... do anything to her a particularly twisted imagination, and an A.I. driven search engine examining all accessible databases for things said imagination missed, could think of.
Her heart pounded at the thought, and a growing heat in the pit of her abdomen echoed it as a birdcall (real? feigned?) echoed through the trees.
There was no way for her to know what she would happen to her once the program was running. Many times she had a quietly uneventful walk (followed by a frantic session of self-pleasure to relieve the pressure from the anticipation), or found herself a voyeur forcing herself to silent stillness scarcely a meter from erotic couplings. Indeed she had found herself on the wrong end of more than one Youma Rampage (although they had always been more bent on inserting portions of themselves into their victims than draining life-force from them) during her evening walks in this chamber.
Despite herself, she had actually started to relax when a bush not far from the walkway moved.
"Hey bookworm!" cried a mocking voice from the opposite direction.
Ami looked around frantically, but there were more human shapes coming from every shadow. Her mind only registered details; the colored pattern on the leather, the gleam of a switchblade, almost comical wolf-whistles, a pattern of moussed and dyed hair....
"Time to pay the toll...." another voice laughed, as the deliberate sound of a zipper being undone made clear the coin the gang demanded.
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(Posted Thu, 05 Feb 2004 18:21)
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